


Domesticated

by capalxii



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The days have some time ago turned into weeks, and Jamie is acutely aware that while he may have initially meant to provide some aid to an old friend who doesn’t seem to have too many other old friends, he’s since adopted—or possibly been adopted by—some sort of angry, awkward, accidental flatmate." Post-series bit of fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domesticated

Jamie doesn’t realize until after the trial—a sham of a trial, or at least that’s what it looked like once Malcolm’s lawyers were through—that he doesn’t actually know where Malcolm came from. There had simply been one day, decades ago, when Malcolm had showed up in the coffee shop Jamie had been working in, and had somehow taken Jamie’s threat of physical violence as proof that Jamie had wanted a job at the local rag Malcolm was scraping around for.

To be fair, Jamie had never thought to look too deeply into it. His life had not revolved around Malcolm (although there were moments where he’d too-easily classify his life into the categories pre-Malcolm, Malcolm-concurrent, and post-Malcolm) and he hadn’t really cared enough to dig into history and find out exactly what unearthly mist Malcolm had emerged from. He’d only ever wanted to have some fun.

But he realizes as he watches Malcolm on some gray steps, in a gray suit, during a gray day on the grayest newscast: he doesn’t know if Malcolm has a place to escape to.

*

The pavement outside Malcolm’s house is infested with press, and so when Jamie calls and asks if he’d rather come stay in a nice house far away from the madding cunts until the storm dies down, Malcolm clips out, “Why’d you wait so fucking long to ask, you scrotal-faced primate,” hangs up, and, Jamie assumes, gets on his way.

Malcolm arrives on his doorstep late that evening, collar turned up and umbrella doing nothing to keep out the chilly sideways rain. Without preamble, without even a glance towards Jamie, he steps inside and drops his bag, shakes his umbrella off, and takes off his coat.

“Hello,” Jamie says.

“Everything I say to you, inside this house or out, is off the record,” Malcolm says. He finally glares at Jamie. “Do bloggers even respect the phrase ‘off the record?’”

Patience, Jamie thinks. Be nice, he thinks. Malcolm’s been through a lot lately, he thinks. “Either say hello back like a civilized person or I shove that umbrella through your eye socket and toss your skeletal corpse back outside for the dogs to chew on.”

Malcolm snarls quietly. “Hello.”

Jamie grins and heads towards the kitchen. “I’ll warm up your dinner.”

*

Jamie, he’ll have you know, is not a ‘blogger.’ He’s into social media now, working with local grassroots organizations instead of dealing with the national political beat, and the fact that Malcolm Tucker is staying with him is meaningless.

The fact that Jamie’s house is the house Malcolm chose to stay at is not quite as meaningless. Jamie had stopped asking after Malcolm’s family some years back; there had been times Malcolm had mentioned some relation at work, only to completely forget the reference later on, and Jamie had long ago figured out that at least some of those mentions had been getaway-cover, escape plans to walk away from a conversation or to work from home without anyone bothering him. Jamie has no idea where else Malcolm would have gone, if he hadn’t offered up his guest bedroom.

But now Malcolm was on the far end of his sofa, watching a talk show or at least scowling at the talk show, and Jamie asks, “You gonna go visit your mother?”

Malcolm glares at him cut-eyed for a moment, then gets up and heads to his room.

The next night, Jamie asks, “You gonna go visit your sister?”

Malcolm spits out, “Fuck yourself on a rusty lamp post,” then gets up and heads to his room.

By the third night, Jamie wants to ask, “You gonna do anything but sit on my furniture, eat my food, and glower?” but he holds his tongue—he is capable of these things, he just usually chooses not to exhibit those capabilities—and stretches his arms out along the back of the sofa.

It’s not a conscious decision, but his fingers find the still-dark curls on the nape of Malcolm’s neck, and it’s some time before Malcolm calmly stands up, stretches tiredly, and fucks off to bed with a mumbled, “’Night.”

*

Jamie works from home some days. Perk of the job. With his laptop on the kitchen table, wearing only boxers and a white undershirt, he sits and types and ignores Malcolm when he sits across from him fully dressed, a mug of coffee in front of him, and glowers.

“Working,” Jamie says.

“Put some clothes on,” Malcolm says.

Jamie gives him the hairiest of eyeballs. “Pay me rent and I will.”

Malcolm purses his lips thoughtfully at that.

*

One day, Jamie comes home to dinner on the table and a little note beside it. “Fuck your rent,” the note reads.

Malcolm is locked away in his room. Dinner is delicious.

A small, insignificant, and easily ignored part of Jamie thinks it would have been more delicious if shared.

*

The next time they share the sofa, Jamie is far more conscious of his hand creeping behind Malcolm’s head.

It’s an experiment. One which may lose him fingers, but the most worthwhile experiments tend to involve potential bodily harm. It turns out to be a successful experiment, as Malcolm is zoned out enough, snacking on fruit and mouthing off at the people who live inside Jamie’s telly, that he barely registers Jamie’s fingers twirling through his dark curls of hair. He does, however, settle into a calmer grump without apparently realizing it.

Jamie grins—and that’s where failure finds him. Malcolm notices his grin, stares from the corner of his eye curiously, and then jerks away from Jamie’s touch while batting his hand away. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Jamie says quickly. He dodges a bit of orange peel. “What?”

“Stop-” Malcolm stands with a huff. “Petting me.”

For whatever stupid reason, that snaps something inside of Jamie. “Fuck off, I wasn’t petting you,” he sneers.

Malcolm throws a pillow at Jamie, then a book, and that’s all it takes for Jamie to jump to his feet and lunge at him.

Jamie somehow manages to tackle Malcolm to the floor. There’ll be carpet burn on his knees in the morning, and his fingers get jammed on the ground something fierce, but Malcolm is snarling under him and crushed beneath Jamie’s heavier-than-it-looks body so he wrenches one hand free and starts carding it through the lighter curls on top of Malcolm’s head. “This,” he hisses, “is petting.”

Malcolm doesn’t quite stop snarling, but his leg twitches with a thump against the carpet and when all sanity leaves Jamie for good and he drops his head to press a kiss against Malcolm’s jaw, the snarling lessens. Malcolm goes pliant under him, weirdly, unexpectedly, and Jamie feels that weirdness warmly inside of him, unable to stop even though he sort of fears this is just the calm before the eviscerating storm. But a few more strokes, a couple more kisses, and the snarling comes to a complete stop.

“More?” Jamie asks.

“More,” Malcolm mumbles.

*

Malcolm sits closer to Jamie on the sofa after that, with the claim, “I don’t want you straining your stubby tyrannosaurus rex arms,” and Jamie shoots back, “You know, I don’t really have to pet you,” and that silences him as he subjects himself to Jamie’s fingers in his hair.

Quickly the routine changes; there’s no pretense as Malcolm lays back with his head braced against the arm of the sofa, reading glasses on, half in Jamie’s lap as he pores through life-enriching books that Jamie refuses to even glance at, Jamie’s left hand around a beer while his right hand absently twists and twirls short locks of silver.

The days have some time ago turned into weeks, and Jamie is acutely aware that while he may have initially meant to provide some aid to an old friend who doesn’t seem to have too many other old friends, he’s since adopted—or possibly been adopted by—some sort of angry, awkward, accidental flatmate. Malcolm is even more prickly than Jamie recalls, but dinner is always warm and lovely when he comes home from work, and some nights Malcolm seems almost anxious for Jamie to sit next to him (and if Jamie’s completely honest, some nights he’s almost anxious for Malcolm to sprawl over him).

They continue on this way for a while longer, until Jamie makes the mistake of asking questions.

*

Malcolm had decided that eating dinner together was better than eating dinner alone, and he’s at the table when Jamie looks at him and says, “I don’t know anything about you from before we met.”

Malcolm does that weird frown-pout thing he does when he’s confused in a slightly offended way and asks, “What’s there to know?”

“Nothing,” Jamie says. He tries not to sound too glum. “Except. You know a lot about me. All I know about you is you showed up one day. Nothing much before that.”

Malcolm continues to glare at him with that weird face until finally he rises, puts his dishes away, and goes to his room.

*

The next day, there is no dinner waiting when Jamie comes home. There is no note. There is nobody keen to complain about some stupid thing he’d seen or read or heard that day.

“Fuck,” he says. There’s nobody to hear that, either.

*

It takes Jamie about a week to figure out what he needs to do. He’s not at all certain it’s the right course of action, but it’s the only course that presents itself, so he goes with it regardless.

It’s late Sunday when he shows up on Malcolm’s doorstep. The press are long gone; Malcolm stopped being a story a couple weeks after the trial, after he’d dropped off the face of the earth and back into Jamie’s life. He opens the door when Jamie knocks, and though his face is wary the fact that he opened the door at all gives Jamie some hope that this might work.

“My brother,” Jamie starts. It’s cold, and he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. “He has this cat. It came out of nowhere—just, it came in through an open window one night. And then it never left. This cat is, is an absolute shit of a cat. Angry all the time. Hates everyone. Trusts nobody but my brother.”

Malcolm rolls his eyes and his lips curl into a sneer. “Am I the fucking cat?”

“Yes, you’re the fucking cat, just listen,” Jamie says with a glare. “This cat, right? It used to get into fights, or something. We don’t know. Part of an ear missing, got this big fuck-off scar down its side. My brother, he tried to scratch the cat’s back leg once. Touched a bunch of scar tissue, nearly lost his whole hand in the ensuing battle. So what’s my brother do?”

“Get murdered by the cat while he slept?”

“He avoids touching his cat’s scars,” Jamie says. When he starts bouncing a little on his toes, it’s not because of nerves, it’s just the chill’s starting to seep in. “Malcolm, come home.”

Malcolm shuts the door on him.

*

Tuesday night, or more accurately very early Wednesday morning, Jamie wakes when the bed shifts. His sleep-drunk mind tells him to close his eyes and let the probable ax-murderer do what he wishes, but the rest of him blinks awake and turns and sees a skinny, pale, silver-topped ghost shambling into bed next to him. “Fucking—Malcolm, how the fuck-”

“Came in through the window,” Malcolm whispers. Jamie looks at him with a look that says the hamsters that run on the wheel of his brain are clearly dead, so Malcolm curls up closer to him and hisses, “I never gave you back your spare key. Come closer, I’m freezing.”

It’s either too early or too late to call his brother for advice. Jamie frowns, opens his arms, lets Malcolm slide under the sheets next to him, and frowns deeper as Malcolm grabs his hand and places it on top of his head.

“Okay,” Jamie says to the dark.

“It better be fucking okay,” Malcolm replies.

It mostly is.


End file.
